


A handful

by orphan_account



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: And Perry being there for his man, Don't read if you're squeemish probably, Hurt/Comfort, Some vivid descriptions of Heinz losing his arms, This is mostly Heinz dealing with the trauma of losing both his arms, could be romantic or platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 10:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Despite all the year's he's coped without his arms, trauma didn't disappear that easily.





	A handful

**Author's Note:**

> A darker tone than most of my other work, but it was fun to work with. I deal with chronic pain so putting the trauma and struggles into words was pretty cathartic.

It happened most often during the night when the thrumming ache of his arms became too incessant to ignore. It all began with a tingle at his fingertips till it trickled up his arm, the sensation not unlike that of maggots crawling underneath skin, daggers of pain registering at his shoulders. It wasn’t like the bruises that would blossom upon his face after a particularly fierce battle with Perry. This pain was choking, unyielding. Even after all these years, his brain didn’t always really register the fact that his arms weren’t there anymore. Not really. 

His prosthetics were good, they reacted just as quickly to his reflexes as his old ones did, and he made sure that nerve endings were installed so he could still feel with them. Both for practical reasons and because he refused to not be able to feel the warmth of Vanessa’s hand when he held hers. Besides, he could usually almost forget about the loss of his limbs, if not for the occasional maintenance that would have to be done on them. 

Heinz groaned from his bed, spitefully aware of the sensation that woke him. It was always particularly vexing to be awakened in the middle of the night after all the work he put to falling asleep, considering the noisiness. He flexed each finger, testing how the nerve sensors gave feedback. There was no tangible reason for the pain beyond his own mind’s inability to reconcile it, even as he tried to get it to register that it was fine. His arms were there, despite their mechanical nature. He was whole. It was fine. 

And some nights that approach worked, but humans were never really that simple. His brain was too finicky to always accept that. The clawing pain didn’t recede this night though, of course. Heinz resentfully grumbled to himself about how now he would be thrown off his game for Perry tomorrow. 

The pain was like white noise, buzzing, tingling along the skin that wasn’t really his. Then it became a throb, the clawing sort that made him grit his teeth and with trembling hands, reach out to his bedside drawer to grab some of the pills he kept near for these incidents. Nausea hit him as soon as he sat up, stabbing pulses of a stubborn ache leaving him doubled over briefly till he gained enough control to open the pill bottle and swallow a few. His shaking figure made it difficult, fingers twitching in retort. Pulse racing while his head spun at the division of this awful pain and the dreadful effort to pull himself together enough to save some semblance of the night. The pills went down easily enough, despite how he felt like he was choking. 

He didn’t know how long it took for the pounding pain dulled enough for the fog to lift from his brain. Gingerly placing himself back against his pillows, he glanced at his arms, stretched out alongside him. It took a few minutes for the medication to take effect, the pain persisted till a soothing numbness took over his limbs instead. The relief left him wearied, worn with the aftereffects of the attack. There was a detached sense of loss that registered briefly within him, as palpable as the first limb’s loss. The memories of the incidents stirred, shadows, testaments of what was apparently his designated lot in life.  
The second time was a much more desperate and raw sensation. Each time came with a sense of helplessness. The cacophony of the physical sense of brokenness and the emotional baggage weighed heavy. But as with anything else, he trudged on. 

 

 

The day went by as typical, despite the night’s troubles. Perry packed plenty of fury into his cute little body, capably offering punches and tail slaps as they fought over a remote to one of his latest inators. It was with a very well placed punch that sent him hitting the wall. It wasn’t a nasty hit, Heinz enjoyed their typical fights. But as his shoulder hit the surface something shifted. He lit out a sharp gasp at the sudden stinging sensation. 

Perry immediately dropped his fighting stance, recognizing the discomfort in his face. It was sweet how Perry fretted over him, approaching with a worried glance, pointing at the offending wound.

“Oh, no, no Perry the Platypus, you didn’t do this. My arms have just been acting up recently. Probably due for a switch out, ugh. Remind me to give you a backstory on how tedious it is to fix these things. Especially when I had to adjust them while I was growing like puberty isn’t hard enough! I mean, I refuse to have baby hands Perry the Platypus. They aren’t very intimidating,” he rambled, as he is want to do. His right arm was worse off, felt like. He reached up to it with his left, gingerly testing it with a touch. “Well, looks like till I get this mess taken care of I probably won’t be up to punching condition. Do you mind if we call it an early day, Perry the Platypus? I’ll, uh, shut down the inator for today. ”

The agent nodded carefully, concern lingering in his gaze as he paused a moment before making another gesture. He was asking if Heinz needed help if he wanted him to stay.

The butterflies in Heinz’s stomach at the obvious care Perry offered him outweighed the nagging pain in his shoulder for a moment. “Oh, no, no. I appreciate it, but the process can get a bit gruesome. I haven’t really shown anyone the whole thing yet, much less how weird I look without arms, so,” he paused at the unconvinced look Perry pointed at him. 

“How about this, I’ll take evil doing tomorrow off too and you can check up on me during our movie night. I’ll be fine, Perry the Platypus, promise!” He had done this plenty enough times on his own before. And besides, he really wasn’t sure if he was ready to show Perry those particular scars just yet. 

He was grateful that he understood, nodding and offering a tip of his hat. He chattered, which Heinz took as a kind suggestion to stay safe and out of trouble. 

“Thank you, Perry the Platypus,” Heinz offered in return, smiling as the agent hesitantly left off the balcony on one of his cute little jet packs. 

 

 

He had to work on the arms one at a time, of course. He had some machinery to make the whole process a little easier, but it wasn’t particularly enjoyable. He shuddered as one of the mechanical arms he had aiding him to grasp onto his right arm, disengaging the nervous connection he had on it, the arm offering a weak spasm as it began to disconnect. Heinz closed his eyes as a nauseating sensation washed over him. As if he had two right arms, both formed at his shoulder before diverting into separate things of bone and blood. The skin and muscle he was born with instead of what he formed out of titanium and sensors. Something he could flex and feel. The empty space of reality was being choked out by the sheer feeling of memory.

As soon as he opened his eyes he was brought back to the certainty of circuits. Indeed, there was his arm, a gadget, presented to him by another machine he had built. Nothing more or less. He began to weave wires, using some nearby tools and keeping his left hand as steady as possible. The phantom of a lost arm was something he experienced more in his early years but had long since made efforts to repress. As prone as he was to lay out his unfortunate circumstances, Heinz could only handle so much. As he pressed down on sensors his fingers would erratically flinch. 

One of the first times he worked on his arm, he got sick. Foul and putrid with the acid taste lingering on his tongue. There was a horrid taste in his mouth afterward, and his head buzzed with a violent vibrating, his brain registering gibberish. The axis of his world felt uneven, balance tilting at the sheer sensation of it all. The skin on his neck prickled. The fitful episode didn’t allow him to measure time, so how long he sat beside his work desk where his arm lay, he wasn’t sure. His eyes were rimmed with red, he realized later when he gazed at an unfamiliar reflection. The streaking, angry scars that ran along his shoulder like swathes left him staring at an even more incomprehensible image than before. Was this really him? The scars coated him, scratched and remnants of the rivers of bloody loss. He shuddered, the vibration shaking into his bones till it settled into an uneasy buzz, like a blade clattering against his bone, sawing in, invading his body, digging and unwanted. His mind felt crowded, pressure weighing down upon him, stretched tautly. He imagined his hand on the desk, writhing, tendons tightening. Thoughts flit around his mind nervously, foggy memories threatening to surface. Congealing, thick streams of blood that passed through his fingers that went limp. 

Now his mind felt full of cotton, motions languid and tempered. The lost weight didn’t make him quite as unbalanced as before, a disassociation allowing him some sense of comfort. He barely registered the white noise at his periphery. His edge of consciousness was too occupied with his arm laid out for tinkering. There could have been something lurking there, aligned to the exact pattern to the center of Heinz’s axis, but he couldn’t quite muster the will to look away from his work. His right arm pulsed, like a heartbeat. The noise of the machinery sputtered but continued on steady afterward. The wires aligned with a careful geometry, patterns mirroring one another. They shuddered and he dragged his tools along the arm. 

 

 

He didn’t realize when he switched out his arms. It was his right arm connected and left laid out now. The molasses within his brain was replaced with a hushed humming. His vision was bordered by his own raw skin tone opening into wires, tendril-like. 

He was startled into clarity, reality becoming oversaturated as he took it in, beads of sweat clutching his hair onto his forehead. His breathing had been ragged, coming out in uneven puffs. Odd. The clatter of his tools thudded against his brain, and he was acutely aware of the pounding headache. There were slow, steady steps from behind him, somewhere in the house. Everything felt so fragile, so he did not move. Warmth seeped from his left shoulder, where once rivulets of bloody streams gushed out, tinging his torso a dark shade. 

He reattached his left arm, coiling it around him briefly. The pattering of footsteps paused outside his door. The mass of his fixed arms tilted him into balance, and he could finally breathe. He vaguely recognized the touch of his nemesis. His friend. Finally tearing his gaze away from his arm, he found Perry carefully cradling his right hand, worry littered in his eyes. 

“Perry the Platypus,” Heinz felt comforted by simply speaking his name. Warm relief flushed at the sight of him. The process must have taken longer than he thought it would, the clock nearby read 1:14 AM. Oh. “Were you watching over me with your fancy-pancy organization cameras?” What a worrypus. This is why he loved him. 

Perry nodded slowly, chittering, paws tracing soothing motions into his hand. He was clearly trying to quickly assess Heinz’s needs and how to help him. The repetitious touch was grounding him, at the very least. 

Heinz didn’t know how to explain these periods of time where he was engulfed with the horrific reality of his traumas. The phantom touches, the chronic pain, the descent into unpleasant memories. But he could at least appreciate that Perry took the time to be here when he could be resting. Sheepish smile settling on his face, he held onto his paw in return. “Well, you took all the effort of coming over here, let’s fix up some tea and we can have a sleepover. I’m actually feeling pretty tired after all of that work, so the pillow fight will have to wait till the morning.”

Heinz was relieved at the smile Perry offered in return, not taking his paw away as he herded him into the kitchen for some warm tea, and soon some well-deserved sleep.


End file.
